Hey guys. After a long time I'm back again. This year I've decided for something different than I usually do in FM.
Usually I play in better divisions, with much better clubs, so I really hope this save will be long and successful.

At the start I also have to apologize for my English. It's good, but far from perfect.

PORTSMOUTH F.C.

Why did I choose Pompey? I think it's a perfect pick if you love challenges and also promises a long and interesting
save. I've always liked this club, don't really know why, I just have. And I think they deserve to play in the PL again,

GOALS

My main goal of this save will be to take the club back to the Premier League as soon as possible.
Then, we'll set new goals. A long-term target is also playing in the European competitions, of course.

It's time to get started. Pre-season was in my opinion very successful in every aspect. In the save I'm already 2
months ahead, but in this update I'll only talk about the pre-season and especially transfers that we made.

:: STAFF ::

We've made quite a big changes in the staff. I think there's no point of speaking a lot about these people as
I believe nobody really knows them, so I'm just gonna show you the screen.

:: TRANSFERS ::

DEPARTURES

Since I've joined Pompey, we've got only 1 departure. Danny Rose. I didn't want to lose him to be honest, but
we've got an offer for him and he wanted to leave. So I decided to loan him out to Bristol City and put the
mandatory future fee of €100k.

ARRIVALS

We've got many players on trial, even some big names as Kranjčar, Cassano, Bassong, Anichebe and Agbonlahor. Nobody
of the mentioned stayed on a permanent deal though. We wanted to sign Anichebe, but his demands was too high for us.

So we turned our attention elsewhere and signed 23 years old winger Jack Barmby. Ex-Manchester United youth player,
who also tried his luck in the MLS was a free agent. I think he's still a real deal for the League One.

The next arrival is Aston Villa's young midfielder Jake Doyle-Hayes who has joined us on 1-year loan. The lad looks
very promising and could be a big addition to our midfield options.

We've made a very good loan deal for Brendan Galloway. Everton wanted to get rid of young defender and were
prepared to let him go without any cost for the team who take him on loan.

Here's a player who has been on trial with us for 4 weeks and earned a permanent deal. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas
has played for many teams in his career and made the grade in a very few of them, can he make it at Fratton Park?

And here's our most experienced signing in this transfer window, Chris Samba. A 34 years old central defender
has got so much experience, also many Premier League games under his belt. We have a couple of very talented
centre-backs in our squad and they could gain a lot from the Congolese veteran.

And the last one. We've signed a partnership with Man United, which became our parent club and will send their
players on loan to Portsmouth without any cost for us. We've already taken Callum Gribbin on a season long loan.

:: FRIENDLY MATCHES ::

We've played 6 pre-season friendly games and I can say that I'm very pleased with how it went. Our performances
are giving us a lot confidence, but we must still stay on the ground, because competitive games are whole another story.

:: STRONGEST XI ::

The tactics gave me a lot of thinking, we were trying 3 different formations in pre-season, but the one which works
the best seems to be 4-2-3-1. I think it's a great fit for our players and hopefully it will be working in the league games too.

It's time for the winter update. Every season I'll post 3 updates on my career:

1) Summer transfer window and pre-season
2) Winter update on how we're doing in all competitions
3) End of the season update

LEAGUE ONE

A brilliant start of the season (10-2-0) has given us a nice advantage, but in December we've started to slowing
down. The most painful result is of course a disgraceful home defeat against then 18th placed Southend. I can't
even describe what happened that game. We were playing our strongest team and completely switched off from
the 1st minute. All in all I can say I'm very pleased with our current position and hopefully we can keep it.

FA CUP

We started the FA Cup with a nice win against Walsall, but then got knocked out by one of the worst sides in
our league, Shrewsbury. But I don't really care about any other competition than League One this season.

CARABAO CUP

We had a bit better run in the Carabao Cup, where we knocked out a Championship side Ipswich Town.
As you can see, Everton were too big obstacle for us. Way too big.

CHECKATRADE TROPHY

The only cup competition we're still in, despite playing all our games with players who don't get much playing
time in the league. We should knock out League Two side Northampton this month and then who knows,
maybe this is our chance for my first silverware at Fratton Park.

PLAYER STATS

So far we've had many players that have played really good so far, but also a couple of those I've not been impressed
with. Especially in central defense, where we've made too many mistakes and have to fix that. The most outstanding
performers so far are our captain, 30 years old striker Brett Pitman, who's league's 3rd top scorer with 15 goals, our
midfield engine Tom Naylor, RB Nathan Thompson, promising winger Ronan Curtis and GK Craig MacGillivray.

My first season as a Portsmouth manager is finished. It was very long and enjoying. I can say I'm very happy
with how we've done and I'm really excited for the summer and the next season.

JANUARY TRANSFER WINDOW

OUT

We got rid of the players that didn't play a lot or just didn't deliver. One of those is Chris Samba, who signed for
us in the summer and we all had big expectations, but the veteran completely flopped and left after just 17 appearances.

IN

We had some problems with centre-backs, so the priority of the transfer window was to bring in another one.
I decided for Paul Downing, who came on loan from Blackburn. He's done his job very good so I'm seriously
considering to make his stay permanent as his contract with Rovers is up at the end of the season.

The next signing is promising West Brom's Jonathan Leko, who we took on loan for a back-up to our wingers.

And the last one is another loan, from our parent club Manchester United came Angel Gomes. We signed
him with the same reason as Leko, to be a back-up for no. 10 position.

LEAGUE ONE

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS! What a season! Our official goal for this season was to reach the playoffs, but we've
done so much better than this. We won the title pretty much easily. 22 points clear. Yes, twenty-two.

CHECKATRADE TROPHY

I hoped we could've won that cup, but it just wasn't to be. We did really well until the semi-final where theArsenal's U23 team knocked us out, even though we were a much better opponent.

PLAYER STATS

The team performed really well this season. Hopefully we can keep a player or two that were on loan. But it
doesn't only depend on us, we'll see how things work out in the transfer window.

Here's player stats.

Youth Intake:What a story for a 15 years old striker!

This season's Youth Intake wasn't really the best of all time for Portsmouth, I believe, but one player really
attracted my attention. It's 16 years old (15 when he was signed) Eddie Byles. And what a story that's been.

Of course he has a lot to improve, but for a such a young lad, he looks promising, considering other U18 players.
And what happened. Whole season I practically had only one proper striker who I can rely on - Brett Pitman.
In the last couple of months he had some problems with injuries and form, so I decided to give a chance to 15 years old Byles.

He became the youngest player to ever wear a Portsmouth shirt. And in his second appearance, he came on as
a substitute at half-time in a derby match against Peterborough and scored a winner in 93rd minute for 1-0.

And as if the moment wasn't special enough for the youngster, it was a goal that clinched the title for us.

New season is just about to start. Portsmouth are in the Championship for the first time in 8 years and hopefully
we'll not be here for a long time, as my expectations and goals are very high. Papers and bookmakers don't really
believe in us though. In their season preview they see us at 22nd place, which would take us back to League One.

:: SUMMER TRANSFER WINDOW ::

Our board has given me a transfer budget of €4m and I spent it all, as I really wanted to build as good squad as possible.

:: DEPARTURES ::

We didn't lose any important players, we also extended contracts with majority of them. The biggest loss will beJake Doyle-Hayes, who was on loan from Aston Villa last season. I tried everything to extend his loan, but Villa
decided not to loan him out again. We loaned out some of our players though.

:: ARRIVALS ::

In this section, it was much busier. We've signed 11 new players for a total fee of €4,9m.

We've signed Gregor Bajde from Slovenian champions Maribor for €220k.

The next signing is a very promising striker Jack Clarke from Leeds for 1 million euros.

Adam Gnezda Čerin is another young player we've signed. He came from Domžale for €250k.

Another Slovenian signing is Luka Šušnjara, who came from Mura for €140k.

After Doyle-Hayes loan deal expired, we needed a new creative midfielder and we found one in Sean Goss who's loaned from QPR.

Our biggest signing in this transfer window is definitely Manuel Lanzini. He signed for Leicester last season, but
disappointed so far, so the Foxes decided to loan him out for a season and we grabbed the chance.

Another big and the most expensive signing is a 24 years old striker Jason Cummings. He came from Nottingham
Forest for €2.7m. He impressed on loan at Peterborough last season scoring 23 goals.

Our parent club Man United have loaned us 3 players. Callum Gribbin is staying on loan for another season, while
'new' loanees are left-back Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and centre-back Axel Tuanzebe.

:: FRIENDLY MATCHES ::

I'm very pleased with our pre-season. We've trained really well and also played our friendly games very decent.
I was especially satisfied with last two games, where we proved that we really improved since last season.

:: SQUAD ::

And at the end of this update, I just want to show you our squad for this season. I think it's very good for the
Championship and should pretty easily fulfill the board's expectations which is to avoid the relegation.